


Them Among Us: Dust To Dust

by Congar



Series: Dust-Eaters AU [3]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 19:38:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18453260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Congar/pseuds/Congar
Summary: This part of the Dust-Eaters AU is primarily written by Congar.





	Them Among Us: Dust To Dust

**Author's Note:**

> This part of the Dust-Eaters AU is primarily written by Congar.

Plura clasps his fingers as he brings them down onto the table. His shirt, now overly large for him, falls down embarrassingly around his arms and neck, almost exposing the beige color of the skin on his shoulders.

“And that’s all. I don’t really know what more to say.”

On the opposite side of the round wooden table sits Otles, leaned back heavily in her chair with four of her orange arms crossed. Her contemplative stare goes through the table, the floor, the ground, pretty much everything. She doesn’t answer, her head is too busy processing all of this. It’s…it’s…

“I’m still the same Plura,” the human pleads, his fingers pushing against each other to the point of hurting. He’ll weather it for Otles though, for her he’d weather anything. She’s his soul mate. The monster he’d never hurt.

Willingly…

“I’m sorry that I lied to you.” Plura’s forced to swallow hard to remove the words choking his throat. “But I’m still me. I’m still the blue to your orange in my soul. Please believe me. I love you with all of my soul.”

Please God let her be understanding!

Otles sits quiet, not moving a single scale. Plura can do nothing but stare at her pleadingly with his human eyes watering, and his human lips quivering. They feel so weird to him. To talk with her with these soft fleshy lips instead of the beak she’s so used to him having, and him so used to him having when speaking to her. He says that he loves her, but it doesn’t feel like it’s him saying it. It feels so alien to him!

He can’t imagine how it must feel for her.

The lamp above the table is still swinging, although the shifting shadows it casts are barely noticeable at this point. Plura’s head is still hurting from bumping into it, but the pain is a relief to him. His cry of pain was the only thing stopping Otles in her track. The only reason she’s sitting here is that she felt sympathy for him. The panic and fear in his voice still resonated with her despite its stark difference. Plura prays that the sympathy still remains even after his explanation.

He can’t excuse his deception, but the least he can do though is to try and explain it. He knows he’s not allowed to talk about the Masquerade, but…

It’s Otles! How can he not! She’s his all! She deserves to know!

She deserves the moon if Plura could give it to her.

He knew this day would come eventually, but he never saw it happening. He’d never forget to dust up now that he was in a relationship, now that he lived with another. Yet here he sits, a human, as a human. It’s been so long since the last time he felt the skin that’s his, so long ago he had hair on his head. Sensitive fingers, a nose, ears that didn’t perk.

If he can’t even muster the courage to look at himself in the cracked mirror behind him, why should Otles even begin to consider looking at him the way he is now?

God fucking dammit!

The couple sits silent for a good while, thinking, contemplating. Can they still call themselves a couple? Plura’s knuckles turn white as his clasping hardens with time. Each second ticking by from the clock he was gifted to from Otles dying father. His dust as well...used up. Plura’s not told Otles that, and it would kill all, if any, love and compassion left inside her. It would spell death to her.

Otles hasn’t even realized that time is passing. Her mind has been stuck ever since Plura stopped speaking. Her ears still don’t believe what she’s heard.

Can they ever?

But it’s not her ears that are processing and taking in this mountain of a revelation that Plura…Is he even Plura?

He flinches as Otles tilts her head up slowly. Their eyes meet, unblinking.

“Is it still you?” Otles asks carefully.

“Yes!” Plura nods as hard as he can. “It’s still me, Otles! I promise!” His tears start flooding down his skinny cheeks as he leans forward, humiliated, over the table. He tenses his back, but his wings do not flap, for they are not there any longer. “I’m still the Plura that you bumped into at the mall. The same Plura that stumbled trying to impress you at the beach. The same Plura that promised to always be at your side when you wake up in the morning. I...I still have that promise to fulfill.”

Even through the tears, even through the eyes with round pupils instead of vertical slits, covered in white instead of a blistering blue, Otles sees him. The same monster so blue that even the clear sky is jealous of him.

“So this is you, the real you?” she asks again.

“Yes, and no.” Plura sighs. “It’s complicated, so much so that I don’t-” A coughing sob interrupts him, and Plura’s forced to compose himself. “I don’t feel like this is me. It is me though, because the blue furred monster you fell in love with is my illusion, but I’ve worn that illusion for so long that it’s become me.” Plura lifts his hands in front of his face. He tries to imagine curling his talons, but there are too many fingers starting back at him for him to recall that feeling. “This,” he turns his hands slowly around, “these are not my claws. They feel so strange, I can’t begin to describe how alien I feel inside my own body right now.”

“This...dust, do you still have more, Plura?” Otles’ ears scream in protest hearing herself say that. “Can you-” She looks away, she can’t stare at this creature no more, even if it is Plura. Her stomach is turning all over the place. She feels like she’s about to throw up. “Can you bring yourself back?”

“Yes!” Plura flies out of his chair, knocking it onto the floor with a loud crash. “Of course!” He takes off running upstairs clumsily. His balance has shifted something fierce, and he barely makes it to the staircase upright. The rhythm of his footsteps through the upstairs floor is the same, but the sound is different. It stops for a minute before returning, this time though they’re the same as Otles remember.

It brings her not calm though, but cold. Fear, and confusion. Her stomach worsens as her anxiety builds ever higher. Her breathing quickens, almost hyperventilating by the time Plura’s reached the stairs.

He hurries down the stairs, and turns the corner. Otles recoils back as she sees him standing there. It’s Plura! His large blue ears, same blue colored fur, and his shirt that she bought just yesterday that fits him perfe-

“Otles!”

She vomits again into the sink. Her head is spinning, and there’s nothing but haze before her eyes. Still, she feels Plura’s aura closing in, and she realizes that she didn’t feel it before. She vomits again, and swats away the warm hands around her shoulders. “Go away!” she shouts with her utmost emotion. She doesn’t know which one is the strongest one at them moment! Confused! Angry! Hateful! Sympathetic! He has to go! He has to get away from her!

“You don’t-”

“I said go AWAY!”

Plura’s aura changes, turning ice cold for Otles. It sends another wave of sick from her stomach, and she again bends over the sink.

Her legs give in from the exhaustion, and she falls down onto the floor gasping for air.

“Plura...” she whispers. She needs to hear the name, needs to hear what it feels to her. Right now, it feels like nothing. She can’t think right now. All she can do is weep. She’s so confused, her mind is a mess. What can she believe anymore?

He...he lied to her! He’s a...not a monster! He’s something else! What… How!

Otsel folds herself into her knees, dragging them closer to her as she coughs sob after pained sob.

Plura stands quivering above his sobbing partner.

What should he do? What can he do? He doesn’t want to leave her, but can he even stay with her if she knows?

Will she be hunted?

No…

No! It’s all been a mistake! Plura should’ve just run away. He shouldn’t have told her! He’s put her in danger. He has to leave her.

For her own sake.

Plura reaches out for Otles with his hand. His blue hand…

It stops just before he can feel the roughness of Otles’ scales.

He can’t. He has to go. He has to go now, before she’s hunted.

“I love you, Otles.”

Plura turns around, tears dotting the wooden floor below him.

“I love you so much.”

“Plura?”

No! Don’t stay! Go! Keep her safe by leaving! Staying will just… It’ll just…

Plura takes support on the door frame. His knees won’t take a single step. They refuse!

“H-how many?” Otles asks from inside her curled position.

“I...” Plura bites his tongue, but it’s not enough. “I can’t say, Ot.”

Otles tilts her head up. Scared, anxious, confused. “That many?” she whispers. Her mouth drags back and forth as wave after wave of fear and shock hits her. “That many?” she repeats.

Plura nods.

Otles head falls onto her knees. “I see,” she lies, to herself. She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t see. She didn’t see Plura, so how can she see any other?

How many of her friends? How many of her family? Who is real, and who is...something else?

How many lies have been told to her?

Less than truths?

“When my father died, Plura?”

No! God no! Not that!

Run! Run away! Why won’t you run!? Idiot! If you love her-

“You took care of his dust, didn’t you?”

Just let her go…

Plura looks down at his hand again. It’s there because of her father. Plura promised the old hedgehog he’d take care of Otles. He promised he’d look over her.

In a way, it’s been her father that’s been looking over her.

Her father, in the hidden bag tucked away in the upstairs bathroom, along with monsters he never knew. Their dust forming the Plura Otles loves so much. The Plura that’s put his love in more danger than she could ever understand.

“I did,” he answers.

“You told me that you would take care of it so that I wouldn’t have to worry.”

“I did.”

“Have you...”

“...I have.”

“Only him?”

“No, others too. Using mixed dust allows us to make our own form.”

Otles words lodge in her throat. “So...” She swallows hard, but it doesn’t fade. “Dad’s been-”

“Yes, Otles. He’s not in the mausoleum. He’s...been near you, all this time.”

“You used him.”

“It’s not something I can ever justify.”

“You used him,” Otles repeats, the words dripping from her tongue like poison. “To...to...”

“To be Plura, for you.”

Otles grabs her head as her mouth opens in a bellowing scream. Pained, hateful, confused, angry, sorrowful.

Plura can’t muster himself to cover his hurting ears. If he can’t accept it, then how can he ever believe that she will?

Otles’ voice disappears underneath a flood of tears and chokes that has her throat twisting into a gurgled wail.

It’s time.

Plura’s knees begin to move on their own.

Time to go.

Time to do the first right thing, the only right thing, and leave Otles. There’s nothing else Plura can bring her but further pain.

His hand rests heavily on the front door.

The Watchers are probably waiting outside.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Plura?” Otles’ voice is raspy and rougher than her scales.

No! Don’t! Just go! For her sake!

“D-don’t go.”

Plura’s hand tightens around the handle.

Just go! She’ll understand! You’ve destroyed her world! Don’t destroy her life as well! Leave! Don’t turn around!

“I...”

Don’t say it! Please!

Otles coughs, more violently than Plura’s ever heard her do. Had she been human she’d been coughing blood.

No! No such thoughts! Go!

“I still...”

Don’t say it! For your own sake!

“I still love you, Plura.”

Dammit.

God.

Fucking.

Dammit!

Why, Otles?

How can you still love him?

Plura’s hand slips off the handle, and he falls down on his locked knees. He pushes his hand against the door, but it won’t open. It’s locked. He needs to... He needs to!

He can’t.

Not with her arms wrapped around him.

Not with her crying over his shoulders.

Not with her burrowing her head against his fur.

Not with their colors complementing each other.

Not with her mouth going up his neck, and cheek.

Not when he meets her kiss…

This is what you’ve done to her, Plura.

You’ve killed her.

She’s dead now. It’s only a matter of time before the Watch finds out.

And what will you do when she does?

Plura turns around, his hand pushing Otles head closer to his. Her body as well.

When she dies, and her dust lies in your hands.

“I love you too, Otles.”

How long will it take before you use it?


End file.
